


Crown'd with weeds

by cherryisgone



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Bad Parent John Winchester, Codependency, Codependent Winchesters (Supernatural), Dark, Dark!Dean Winchester, F/M, Feral Behavior, Incest, M/M, Minor Character Death, Prostitution, Protective Dean Winchester, Sam Winchester's Demonic Powers, Weecest, dark!sam winchester, sam winchester has long hair (like really long)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-30
Updated: 2020-05-30
Packaged: 2021-03-03 01:15:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,462
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24456541
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cherryisgone/pseuds/cherryisgone
Summary: Dean only has three rules and Sam does his best to follow them.Don’t get in trouble.No boys nor girls.Don’t go in the basement.
Relationships: Dean Winchester/Sam Winchester, Sam Winchester/Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 5
Kudos: 57





	Crown'd with weeds

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first story, also i'm not from an English-speaking country, so please forgive any weird mistake.  
> I wish to thank homo_pink for being such a wholesome and twisted source of inspiration <3 Also, this story is kind of dark, see end notes for more content warnings! I don't wish to upset anyone.

“you are something unholy inside of me.   
  
something monstrous.   
  
something great.”  
  
—[ bezalel ] aliya g. 

  
  


1983.  


They’ve been locked in that motel room for five days now and Dean feels like one of those children you see on TV: kidnapped from their homes and kept hidden somewhere, with a new name and a new haircut, by someone who doesn’t care if they cry or scream, as long as they get their money.

Dean doesn’t scream though, he sits on the floor, legs crossed, wearing the clothes brought by the woman with the uniform. She knocks their door every two days to bring clean clothes and food, then leaves.

Dean keeps asking where’s mommy. He does so every morning when he wakes up and every night before falling asleep, but Dad won’t answer him. John collects all the brown, empty bottles in a box and leaves the room every two days for a few minutes, then comes back with a new heavy box.

Dean crosses his legs the other way around because he can’t feel them anymore. He begins to think that maybe when he asks for mommy his voice is too weak, maybe John doesn’t hear him, that’s why he doesn’t answer. So he asks again, a little louder this time, but the result remains the same: his father’s face is white-wall blank, eyes fixed on the TV even if it’s not turned on and a brown bottle in his right hand. Dean keeps asking the same question ( _Where’s mommy?_ ) rising his voice until he finds himself screaming.

John jolts from the armchair so quickly it reminds Dean of that clown in the box that Sammy is so afraid of. The bottle falls from his father’s hand, a dark and foamy stain spreads on the floor and John begins to scream with the hoarse voice of a man who hasn’t spoken in days. He shouts that mommy is dead, that she won’t come back and that’s all his fault.

Sammy wakes up and begins to cry too, hiccupping and shaking his tiny fists. John moves towards the bed and for a split second Dean is absolutely _terrified_ of the idea of that man getting close to his little brother, even though he doesn’t understand why. His dad gets closer to the baby and moves all the pillows he had surrounded Sammy with to prevent him from falling, then cradles him into his arms, tiny dark-haired head resting on his shoulder. Sammy keeps on screaming as tears fall on his red face. John grabs a bottle from the nightstand, goes back to the chair and begins to cry too.

Dean has been sitting on floor the whole time and he doesn’t have the energy to move, so he stays there and begins to wonder. He doesn’t really understand what the word “dead” implies, neither what “won’t come back” means and he ain’t sure to have completely grabbed the sense of “never again”. He doesn’t even understand whose fault it is, whether John was talking about Dean or himself.

While he thinks this last thought he’s hit by a weird feeling in his tummy, because there’s no way it could be Dean’s fault. His father had put Sammy in his arms and told him to run and even though he didn’t really understand what was going on, he had obeyed: he had run down the stair holding tight onto that little bundle of blankets and he hadn’t let go of Sammy even when the firemen had surrounded him and taken them away from the burning house. _He_ had done nothing wrong, in fact, Dean’s quite sure to have saved Sammy’s life because he couldn’t walk yet and he wouldn’t have been able to make it by himself. No, he needs Dean.

His gaze rises, looking first at where the bottle spilled and now a stain is dirtying the yellowish carpet, and then looks at his father, his face wet with tears and as red as Sammy’s.

There’s something terribly wrong in that picture, Deans knows it because that feeling in his tummy is getting worse, it’s _burning._

He studies how John’s left arm holds Sammy’s head and how his right one is gripping the neck of the bottle and that’s probably the moment when Dean Winchester realizes his father is an horrible person.

  
1996.

  
Sam is almost thirteen when John “buys” that old house in Richmond.

There are at least seven cities in the US named like that and Dean is sure they all look the same, so he doesn’t bother to remember the name of the State they’re in.

The house belonged to one of John’s “friends”, but with the right amount of weapons, information and dragon blood you can buy anything. It’s small, isolated but with a bus stop just in front of the garden, where trees and bushes have grown without control; two bedrooms, a bathroom with a bathtub (“a _real_ bathtub, Dean!”) and a horror movie kinda basement.

Sam is already enrolled at the local school while Dean has decided it’s not worth it anymore and anyway the garage downtown needs some help.

John comes and goes, sometimes he leaves for a couple of weeks and comes back without a scratch, sometimes he return in three days in the dead of the night, trying to keep his guts from spilling on the floor.

  
1996.  


Sam is thirteen and has a few friends to celebrate with.

There’s something strange in his eyes, a spark that never seems to leave, but Dean can only see it when Sam stares at him through his lashes and that hair that is getting way too long.

“Will we stay here forever?”. Sam asks one afternoon at the garage where Dean’s working. That bleak light shining at him and Dean is sure that Sammy _knows_.

Dean told him nothing and John has stopped talking to his second born a long time ago. Still he has the feeling that Sammy knows that time is running out, that in a few weeks John will be back from the hunt and will scream at them to pack their duffle bags because he has wiped out everything dangerous to humankind in a three-States radius and it’s time to move.

Sam’s sitting on the trunk of a Chrysler that’s older than him, an history book open on his crossed legs and a bony knee peaking from a hole in his jeans. Next to him a bottle of Coke is floating a few inches above the car. Dean leaves the wrench on the dirty floor and reaches for the bottle, delicately presses two fingers on the lid to restore the gravity force that doesn’t seem to really work when Sam’s around.

Sam is happy there, in Richmond, in that house that on windy night creaks and moans louder than the diner’s waitress; in that school where everybody has known each other since they were toddlers but who has accepted Sam anyway, because who can resist falling in love with Sammy when he smiles one those sunflower-boy smiles? Dean was the first one to fall into the trap. _I saw a bee drowning in honey and I understood_ or some shit like that.

If Dean’s little brother is happy there, in that city that’s the copy of a copy, then there’s no other place Dean would rather be.

“No. We ain’t leaving, Sammy”.

Sam smiles and Dean truly feels like drowning in honey, even though Sam’s eyes are cold and his smile is all teeth.

  


1996.  


Dean goes through the newspapers from six different States, desperately searching for something to keep the storm at bay.

He finally finds a track in the Louisiana’s marshes. John gets in the car, shoots Dean a dirty look and starts the engine.

“Two weeks, Dean”.

“Yes, sir”.

He feels terribly calm.

  
John comes back covered in mud and bite marks that could only belong to something with a _very_ disjointed jaw.  
Sammy’s restless, his shoulders curved under the heavy tension that fill the air anytime he and John find themselves in the same room. He doesn’t even talk to Dean anymore, but things will get better soon, Dean will make sure of it.  


On the 4th of July the night sky goes from red to white to blue and Dean’s heart beats along the explosions. Sammy’s sitting on the porch staring at the changing color of the stars while John is waiting for them in the car, the trunk open and their duffle bags already in. Dean can still hear the fireworks outside, the metal is cold and his hand doesn’t tremble one bit. It’s gonna be easy, their job doesn’t always have to be messy.

_Boom._

_Boom._

Bang _._

_Boom._

_Boom._

The box is hidden under the stairs. Dean weeps the dust away and gets back upstairs. Sammy hasn’t moved and is staring at with red, white, blue eyes.

“He found another hunt. He’ll be gone for a while”. Dean shakes the box smiling, making the fireworks rattle.  
Sam smiles back all teeth and dimples and for a moment Dean feels like seeing him for the first time.

1996.  


The leaves begin to fall and Richmond seems covered in a yellow-orange-red rotting blanket.

Sammy is sitting on the porch floor in front of the chair they dragged outside to enjoy the summer night breeze.  
“He’s not coming back, is he?” Sam’s staring at the dying trees, but Dean doesn’t need to look at him to know his eyes are sparkling. Dean has seen the same shining in his own mossy green eyes lately.

He pats Sam’s head, trailing his fingers down to caress the slice of skin between the hem of Sammy’s sweater and his way-too long hair. He touches the flesh lightly like a crawling bug, not enough to itch but enough to send jolts of electricity way down Sam’s spine, right to his crotch.

The air has been getting chiller with the passing days and that’s great because on the hotter days the smell of decay made staying inside just unbearable.

Dean answers the question even though Sammy already know the answer. Sometimes, some things are just nice to be heard like whispered _I love yous_ or _I did this for you._

“No, Sammy. He’s not coming back”. Dean made sure of that, salt ring and rusted nails and all that jazz.

1996.

  
Dean only has three rules and Sam does his best to follow them.

Don’t get in trouble.

No boys nor girls.

Don’t go in the basement.

  
1998.  


Sam is fifteen and all the friends he had in school have forgotten about him.

He barely speaks in class and if he does is to say something clever. To the majority of his classmates he’s as transparent as air, to others he’s just a fucking weirdo. William Hobbes –Billy for his grandma whom he visits every afternoon after school and Ace for the scared first-years he bullies in the hallways – is one of those people.

Sam’s crossing the football field to get to Dean’s garage the day Ace calls his name. Sam ignores him and keeps walking, but the guy runs after him, grabs him by the backpack and throws him to the ground.

Ace begins to laugh “So freak, how comes your mommy doesn’t cut your hair, duh? Let me guess, ya’ll don’t even have enough money for a decent pair of scissors? That’s why you wear clothes three times your size? Uh?”.

He grabs a handful of Sam’s hair and hurls Sam to his feet. Ace is a few inches taller but he feels like shrinking when Sam lifts his face: it’s all teeth and dimples and his eyes are an indefinite color between hazel and yellow. And they’re fucking empty. He never really understood how eyes could be empty, like eye sockets can be left empty if you remove the eyeball, but eyes? But he swears there’s absolutely nothing behind Sam Winchester’s cold stare.

Sam punches him right on the nose and Ace hears the cracking sound of something breaking, followed by the copperish smell of blood. He’s too shocked to react and he’s still holding Sam’s hair in his fist , but he’s forced to let go when Sam’s knee hits his stomach, making him to double over in pain. Sam waits a couple of seconds, just until Ace lifts his dumbstruck head to look at him and hits him again, aiming to his mouth.

Ace rolls on the grass, tries to mumble something but Sam’s dirty sneakers fall on his ribs, once and twice then three, four, five, six times ‘till Ace loses count. All he can do is wrap into himself fetus-like and listen to the symphony of creaks leaving his ribcage every time Sam kicks him and a pathetic whimper leaves his split lips. Blood is dripping from his nose, mixing with the one gargling in his mouth.  
Breathing is getting harder but he can’t move. His vision is getting blurred but Sam Winchester’s face is crystal clear: a chilling smile, eyes now shining with something entirely too _alive,_ wild hair half covering his face.

And then he stops.

Sam stops and crouches down, hands on his knees as to regain his breath, his shoulders begin to tremble and he lets out a sound Ace never heard before: the kid is fucking laughing. Sam snap his head up and his hair falls on his eyes like a curtain, there’s no trace of amusement in his traits, just his excessively dilated pupils eating at the gold and Ace’s blood drying on his knuckles.

“Try that again” Sam’s words sound like a dead sentence and Ace, in a stroke of clarity, realizes that’s the first time in weeks he has heard Sam Winchester open his mouth “And I’ll crush those two or three ribs felt unbroken”.

Sam keeps looking at him and his gaze is so intense Ace feels overwhelmed, he wishes he could lower his eyes but he can’t. He realizes with horror that is body ain’t just obeying him and suddenly breathing goes from excruciatingly painful to impossible. He can feel air slowly leaving is nostrils but he can’t inhale. It’s probably because his nose if fucking broken he thinks, but when he tries to breathe through his mouth air just hovers over his tongue and refuses to go down his windpipe.

Sam is staring at him with a mix of amusement and curiosity, while a single drop of blood trails from his nose to his upper lips. Slowly Sam’s tongue laps at the blood, leaving a red smudge behind.

A slow, bored clapping comes from the bleachers. Sam turns around and air flows back into Ace’s body like a punch to the lungs. There’s a girl sitting on a bench who’s staring at them with the same interest girls usually reserve to football matches. Sam stiffens slightly.

“Saw something interesting?” his voice is as cold as his eyes and Ace has feeling that Elizabeth Calvin’s body parts will be found scatter in a ditch pretty soon.

“I did and it was quite educational” the girl raises a thumb “That asshole deserved that”.

Sam studies her for a wild heartbeat or two, trying to understand what kind of game she’s playing .“How much for your silence?”.

Elizabeth Calvin smiles at him like children smile at caged animals “Let’s say a cherrybomb milkshake”.

  
1998.  


Dean likes his job at the garage but pay is not the best and he and Sammy still need to eat.

He tried asking Beau – the owner – a raise, telling him that his father is always out of town for work and that he sends a few bucks every month, that he has to take care of his little brother _and you know Beau, the kid is growing, he needs fuel._

Any regular person would have called a social worker knowing that the barely at age boy working for them lived alone and had to feed a minor, but Richmond is a small town and even though gossip is worth more than gold, nobody really cares.

After a weeks of failed attempts, Dean lets it go but if there’s something John Winchester didn’t fail at as father, that’s teaching his sons how to survive.

  
1998.  


Elizabeth Calvin wants to be called Izzy, is filthy rich and really into forensic medicine.

Sam sits willingly next to her in biology, English literature and during lunch and that’s probably the closest to a friendship Sam has experienced in the last year. Izzy goes from quiet to word-vomit in three seconds flat, but Sam doesn’t mind her filling all his silences with pointless chatter.

He talks about Izzy almost enthusiastically one evening, while Dean is grilling cheese sandwiches. Dean says he’s really happy Sam is finally making new friends, but his stiff back and white knuckles beg to differ. When Sam asks for an explanation, Dean turns around with a fuckboy smile and winks at him.

“Try not to forget rule number two, little brother, no pulling down any panties”.

Sam bursts out laughing.

  
Almost every day after school they go to the diner for a milkshake, they order a maxi with two straws because Sam doesn’t have any money to waste and Izzy has a ten dollars weekly pocket money. There’s nothing romantic about that cherry (Izzy’s favorite) or banana and peanut butter (Sam’s) milkshake, so the waitress should cut it with her ’50s teenage dream open-eye fantasy.

She’s a dolly kinda beauty, hopelessly cliché in her blond hair and big blue eyes – the kind of thing Dean likes to play with and the kind of thing Sam would love to chew on. She probably already knows what Dean’s cock feels like inside of her, but does she get her fingers sticky and creamy-white while pushing Dean’s come back inside her pussy, not a drop to waste? Probably not. Not-so-pure little thing’s too scared of seeing her tummy swelling before marriage and Sam’s big brother’s not really the kind of guy to put a ring on it to try hide the evidence. Sam would like that though, he misses the feeling sometimes. His belly doesn’t stretch around Dean’s cock as it used to. 

  
Izzy asks a lot of questions, but not the usual _what’s your parents’ job? where will you go to college? did you see the game yesterday?_ She asks weird questions like _what’s the color you hate the most? how did you get your fist scar?_ or _how many dead bodies are there in the ocean?_ So Sam doesn’t mind answering her.

On a Thursday the waitress bring them a cherry milkshake (Thursday is Izzy’s picking day) on a glossy tray while Sam is showing Izzy his fist scar: a pale line on his right palm, parallel to the lifeline and when she asks how he got it, Sam answers “a werewolf” and Izzy nods as if that’s totally normal. But all the waitress sees are two lovesick puppies holding hands and when she brings the change they realize Izzy paid the milkshake half off.

“Not to make things weird between us, Sam but I think if you kissed me we could have free milkshakes for a year”.

1998.  


Dean is nineteen and the bus driver firmly believes he has a girlfriend.

The city is five minutes away, but without a car Dean has to take the bus. Richmond’s transportation network is way too punctual but exasperatedly slow. Dean cooks dinner, eats and three times a week he waits at the bus top in front of the house ; nods to the driver –Archie writes the tag on his chest – and takes a sit at the far end of the bus, where you can find those who don’t want to be bothered, troublemakers and desperate souls. Or whom like Dean is full package.

  
After three weeks Archie has it all figured out. Dean takes the bus three times a week – Tuesday, Friday and Saturday night – without missing a beat. He gets aboard at 8 o’clock and waits for the last 1 o’clock ride back to Richmond. That’s obviously when the girl’s parents go out or probably past midnight is the girl’s curfew.  
Also, when Dean gets back on the bus is hair is always slight disheveled as if he tried to fix in a hurry and his pouty lips – back alley lips, his father would have said, bless his soul – are always shiny and swollen. The evidence is all there.

One night, when on the bus is just Archie and the boy, the driver decides to investigate. “You should get yourself a car, young man. Girls love a motor, and I’m saying so against my own interest” he winks in the rearview mirror while his words bunch between the empty sits.

“That’s why I’m working” Dean replies with sly grin.

The bar next his alley is called John’s, the city is called Hope and Dean can help but appreciate the irony of it all.

1999.  


Sam is sixteen and he’s not stupid.

He’s sitting on the couch with Izzy’s legs in his lap and a bag of chips between them while they watch a VHS on forensic medicine Izzy bought at a garage sale. But she ain’t paying attention to the rigor mortis – and that’s her favorite bit – instead she’s taking chips in her hand, crushing them in her fist and then lets the crumbles fall into the bag.

A tiny part of Sam’s brain tells him that after an year of solid friendship he should ask Izzy what’s wrong, while the dominant part just wishes she would stop crushing those chips – and his thinning patience – and the only way is inevitably asking her what’s going on.

He looks at the remote on the coffee table where Izzy left it, then with a sigh lifts his eyes to the stomach, lungs and liver all neatly arranged on the tray and the TV screen goes black. Izzy doesn’t seem to realized Sam just turned it off without moving a muscle (if the not the special one in his brain, fuel by the special blood in his veins) and keeps on crushing chips. Sam turns his head to face her but doesn’t ask _what’s wrong_ , instead he tries to paraphrase his question to follow Izzy’s little game.

“What doesn’t suck in your life right now?”

Izzy’s thin lips bend slightly at the edges “Well… my pocket money has been raised to twelve dollars and I bought a new forensics books”. She already told him that, so Sam tries a different approach to make her stop.

“What do you wish didn’t suck so much right now?”. Finally – _finally_ – Izzy lets the chips fall in the bag, untouched.

“Few months to the new millennium and I’m still a fucking virgin” . Sam snorts a laugh and Izzy shoots him a dirty look “Judging from your reaction, it seems you don’t suffer such problems” it sounds like an accusation and Sam shrugs while hiding a smile because _oh Izzy, you have no idea._

“How do you think love works?” brutal changes of topic are Izzy’s thing, talking about love is not, so Sam tries to figure out where she’s going with this “How does it work when you love someone?” she continues.

The last question, asked in a low and brooding tone, seems rhetoric but Sam couldn’t have answered anyway. How can you explain something you’ve been doing your whole life? It’s just like being unable to miss something you never had. Like a mother and a father, for example.

Izzy frowns and sighs “Guess I’ll truly learn how people work when I’ll finally dissect one”.

Sam wonders what Izzy would find if she opened him up, from throat to guts. Probably a darkness as black and thick as tar and underneath it all, Dean’s name stuck in his windpipe and engraved in his bones with a pocket knife like a park tree. A forest of bones, all carved with their lovetwisted initials. Sam likes the image.

“I thought you and Jackson Maitland had some fun”.

“ _Tsk_. He had fun”.

It’s Saturday night and Dean is _working_. When his brother told him he had found a bar in Hope, Sam believed him. Al least until Dean came back home at 1.13 in the morning, his back pocket heavy with a couple of wrinkly bills and someone else’s smell so strong on his skin it made Sam want to throw up. He would refuse to get close to Dean on those night, if it wasn’t that Dean himself would keep as far away from Sam as possible, as is afraid to contaminate him.

Every time Dean mentions rule number two Sam wants to laugh in his face and remind him what a fucking hypocrite he is, but he just smiles quietly. Maybe it’s time to give his big brother a little taste of his own medicine.

Izzy is still staring at him, a raised eyebrow, waiting for an answer.

“That’s something we could easily fix, ya know”. Sam leans towards her tilting his head, long hair caressing his neck as it falls down his shoulder.

Izzy seems to think about it and Sam gets mentally ready for a slap, the end of their friendship or worse, a kiss. Izzy just shrugs her shoulders “Better eye out then always ache”.

Sam lets out a small cackle as he guides Izzy to his and Dean’s room for the first time; Izzy’s inability to be surprised by anything is somehow astonishing. Probably she would have the same impassible reaction in front of real corpse and that too is something that could easily be fixed, an hypothesis that could be verified just by opening a door and going down a few steps into the basement.

Dean said _no pulling down any panties_ and Sam is not an hypocrites, so when Izzy jumps on the bed and lays there rigor mortis still, he just pulls her mossy green (big brother green) panties aside and thinks that one day he could make an excellent lawyer.

  
Truth be told, fucking Izzy is rather boring, but Sam has a wild imagination and with little effort he can picture the ghost of Dean’s come hitting the back of his throat and watery calloused fingers closing around his neck.

Sam manages to gift his best friend with a couple of orgasms – while snatching one for himself, greedy little thing that Sam is – as he stares unseeingly at Izzy’s curly hair, imagining Dean finding them like this: precious Sammy buried deep into Izzy’s spit-slick pussy. Maybe Sam could retort that he was being far more generous than Dean is, after all he’s fucking Izzy for free. He can easily imagine Dean’s eyes turning broken-glass sharp and his fist colliding with Sam’s grinning mouth, making it bleed. And if he focuses a little more Sam can feel rough leather bounding his wrists, a hand pulling at his scalp and Dean’s unlubed cock fucking him into mattress.

Or maybe his big brother would watch – shell-shock still and wide-eyed, betrayal and lust twisting his guts. Perhaps he would join in. Sam’s not sure. Dean’s quite unpredictable at times, but sure he doesn’t like his rules being broken, just like their father.

As the thought crosses his mind, Sam swears he can hear his old man’s bones rattle somewhere in the foundations of the house as if summoned, but maybe it’s just the bed creaking.   


1999.

  
Sam is sixteen and he’s growing like a weed.

At night he lies still in bed , eyes staring in the darkness as his bones creak and his muscles stretch to fill up all the space.

Dean runs him hot bath in the dead of the night, when Sam feels like one of the illustration of that medieval torture book Izzy showed him, where people were laid on a wooden board and stretched by their arms and legs until they were torn apart and disjointed like broken dolls.

Sam curls in the bathtub which barely fits him anymore, submersed to his lips, yellow eyes out of the water like a crocodile, while Dean caresses his seaweed-swirling hair. Dean’s humming _Whole lotta love_ with his mouth closed and it’s hauntingly comforting to Sam, closest enough to a lullaby. Dean keeps singing his litany even when a particularly painful twinge surprises Sam and all the light bulbs around the 1960’s vanity mirror pop, leaving them surrounded by darkness and the smell of sulphur.

1999.

  
Sam’s at the far end of the garden, a few steps from the fence and their untouched mailbox.

Dean approaches him slowly, careful not to make any sound and break Sammy’s concentration. He watches his brother throw a handful of pebbles in the air and even though the majority fall down, a few remain mid air as if too scared of Sam’s golden stare to dare fall. Sam breathes in deep and the stones fly so fast into the mailbox it almost gets uprooted. Satisfied, Sam lets himself slip along the elm’s trunk and sits on the ground.

“It’s nice to be free” he whispers.

Dean had realized pretty early that Sammy had something special in him. Not a music or mathematics genius kinda special, but something deeper, more rooted, something holy. Or so told him all the things that seemed to change place on their own, the TV that would turn on and off when Sammy clapped his chubby little hands together, the whiskey bottles that flew across the room and shattered when Sammy got angry. But Sammy was still a good kid, he never cried, slept all night and wasn’t afraid of the monster under the bed. Probably because clever little Sammy had already figured out he was far more dangerous than whatever was lurking in the dark.

Dean was seven and a half when he realized that his little brother was in danger. If John had found out what Sammy could do, he would have inevitably taken advantage of him, he would have taken him hunting before it was time, he would have _used_ Sammy as a shield, as a weapon to win his one man crusade. What better gift for a man who lived on too much alcohol and not enough regrets?

Hiding Sammy’s powers over the years was far easier than Dean expected. After all, John was barely a ghost in their life, unwelcome and irritating when he would manifest, an unpleasant memory when he would leave. His eyes would go from newspaper articles to the void, all those little anomalies would go unseen and if the 7/11 security cameras went short circuit every time the Winchesters were running thin on money, well then, that was just rotten luck.  
But now that John was out of the way there was no need to hide.

Dean sits ungraciously down next to Sam, collects with his thumb the droplet of blood trailing from Sam’s pointy nose: promptly Sam’s tongue’s laps at the his own blood licking Dean’s finger clean. Sam’s lips are a Snow White’s deadly apple kind of red.

“You work too hard” Dean scolds him. Sam shrugs “It’s just training” and before Dean can investigate any further Sam notices the leather jacket he’s wearing.

“Look at that … Long time no see” he traces a leather sleeve delicately, as if it could dissolve under his touch. It’s Dean’s turn to shrug.

“Thought of it as part of my inheritance”

“Thought inheritance had to be consensual”

“Dead man can’t say no, Sammy” he replies drily and Sam bursts out laughing, then lowers his voice “He was a good man, a good hunter”. Dean jerks his head, disbelief clear on his face, but quickly tries to regain some composure. It had taken him days to get rid of the fetid smell of alcohol and decomposition from the leather.

“He was an awful father” he spits through clenched teeth. Sam shakes his head, hair scattering on his face and skinny chest.

“Guess you can’t have it all” he says. But he’s wrong. Dean’s the living demonstration you can have everything you want and sometimes more.  
  


1999.

  
Dean is twenty and Beau gifts him a car.

That Chrysler had been collecting dust in a corner of the garage long before Dean came along, it’s in terrible conditions and Dean still has to pay Beau for the spare parts he needs, but it’s still a gift. And his little corner job is doing well: Sammy’s tuition is paid, the fridge is full.

It’s Thursday evening when Dean get’s back home, the house is dark and silent, no note on the table so Dean assumes Sam hasn’t been home today. It’s 8.23 when the key turns in the keylock and the door opens, Sam walks in the kitchen with a ballerina-light step, drags the chair on the linoleum and sits at the kitchen table.

Dean didn’t hear the backpack hit the front door carpet and that’s enough for a suspicious little parasite to start chewing on his brain. Dean stops chopping the vegetables, leaves the knife on the board, turns around to greet his little brother and notices a climax of details that goes hand-in-hand with the bile rising from his stomach.

The backpack is nowhere to be seen, probably Sam didn’t set his foot in school that morning and his hair is wilder than usual, his lips – shiny and swollen – twisted in a blood-curling grin. His short is dotted with dark coin-shaped stains. Dean stares into Sam’s eyes – his pupils so dilated the green-blue-gold of his irises is barely there and when Sam lowers his eyes on the table Dean’s follow. On the yellowish tablecloth there are at least three hundred dollars. Dean steps back until he hits the sink and the only thing he can think of is _why?_

“You see Dean, lonely people go around at all times of the day. Not just between 8 and 1 o’clock” is tone is ice-cold, an iceberg edged with cruelty.

“But I’m afraid you’ll have to find yourself some new costumers” Sam adds, lifting his bloodied hands from his laps and laying them on the table, staining the tablecloth and the dollar bills. It’s the span of an heartbeat, but for a second Dean can see Sam as everybody else does: a skinny boy who wears his hair outrageously long and too empty eyes shining with a sinister light. He can see all the molting rot behind Sam’s stoic mask and wonders how John could have been so blind not to see that the evil he feared and hunted was sitting quietly in the back sit.

But Dean is not afraid of him and the blood soaking Sam’s hands and sleeves is just a superfluous evidence. Dean quickly crosses the distance between them and grabs Sam’s hair, yanking his head back and forcing him to look at Dean: “Why would you do that?” Dean’s tone is as dangerous as the kid in front of him.

The boy who put a bullet through John Winchester’s skull vs the boy who could raise hell to his liking. Literally.  
Sam barks a laugh “Could ask you the same fucking thing” Dean yanks Sam’s head harder but Sammy doesn’t seem to mind, is smile gets wider “Though you could keep it from me, uhm? Make those fuckers your dirty little secret? Thought _I_ was your dirty little secret, _Dee._ Can’t blame them though, a pretty little thing like you, going around with those constantly bowed legs, just begging to be spread.”

Dean lowers his face until they are at ghost-kiss distance and spills his words very carefully “I asked you why. Would. You. Do. That, Sam”.

Sammy shrugs his shoulders and his lips graze Dean’s when he speaks “Just trying to save some money for college, you know”.

1999.  


It’s been a month since Archie took the lover boy to Hope.

His ride is not the most popular, especially after dawn but it was nice to have someone to share it with, even though the boy ever so nodded and spoke a few monosyllables. It’s clear that he has followed Archie’s advice and got himself a car or maybe his quaint weekly romantic escapes have come to an end.

He turns left and gets ready for the seventeen minutes long travel ahead. At the thirteenth minute he drives past the stop his unfortunate Romeo used to wait at and throws a quick look at the house. All he can see are two dark silhouettes in front of the window, barely illuminated by the tv light: one his for sure that nice kid, the other one seems skinnier with long long hair, obviously the girl Archie used to take him to.

The driver sighs happily as he gives one more look in the rearview mirror. _First love is forever._  
  


2000.

  
Sam is sitting on the porch, unbothered by the cold winter air.

Dean’s not really paying attention to the fireworks – a palm holding up his head and the other holding a beer can – he’s staring at Sam’s profile lighting up with yellow, red, green and blue, purple, white and orange, then all over again.

“When you said you were trying to save some money for college … were you serious about it?” it’s not the question that’s been chocking Dean for a couple of months now, but it’s is as close as he can get to the truth. Sam keeps staring at the sky, the urgency in Dean’s voice hangs thick between them and Sam recognizes it’s an Izzy kind of question – Izzy who’s dancing barefoot on someone else’s coffee table, a bottle of champagne in hand and the sequence dress they chose together. Izzy invited him to the party, obviously, even though it wasn’t her New Year’s Eve party and predictably Sam refused. That’s not for him, that’s something he never longed for.

“Were you serious about it, Sammy?” Dean’s voice has an edge of desperate to it now.

“No” Sam murmurs answering to Dean’s real question: _are you leaving me?_ and he’s telling the truth. Sam turns around to look at his brother and reads relief mixed to something dark on his fireworks lit face “I don’t have any other place to go” the purple sky fades to white and Dean smiles, tension melting off him.

They’re quiet for a while, Sam’s head resting on his brother’s shoulder, their hands intertwined.

“You got a car, why don’t leave instead?” Sam asks and Dean runs a feather-like hand through his hair, coaxing him to turn and face him. Their eyes reflect the changing colors of the sky, but the golden sparkle in them is unmoving.

“Because there’s no other place I’d rather be, Sammy”.

THE END

**Author's Note:**

> If you made it to the end, i thank you from the bottom of my heart <3 
> 
> MORE WARNINGS (all of which are not too detailed): bullying resulting into violence (but not towards the bullied part), murder, blood, some gore (but not really i guess? like, forensics science kinda gore), a very brief mention of unspecified but extreme underage sex, chocking and pregnancy. Also the ending is kind of ambiguous, but that adds to the codependency.


End file.
